She Gives You Hope
by Exceeds Expectations
Summary: Who are you beneath your human skin? Or how Tonks stopped Cho from falling into madness. Warning for femslash.


_**A/N:** This is my drabble entry for Mew and Mor's Weird Pairings Competition and thus is a M&MWP! The more I thought of it, the more I actually kind of fell in love with the idea of these two together._

_Thank you so so much for **TamariChan** for betaing! Go check her out, she's awesome!_

_I wanted larger spaces between the bracketed and unbracketed parts but FF is being mean. *grumblegrumblegrumble*_

**_Pairing: _**_Cho Chang/Nymphadora Tonks_

_**Word Count**: 899 exactly._

* * *

Who are you beneath your human skin?

You are a bird, you think. If only you could fly away and drown yourself in graying rainclouds, wings strong and steady. You've always loved flying.

_("You're beautiful up there, Cho," Cedric told you once. You kissed him for the first time that day.)_

Who is _she _beneath her human skin?

Perhaps she is a bird, too. She's less soaring sparrow and more of a hopping robin, jumping from branch to branch and bearing her redbreast (pinkbreast) proudly. She would whistle while she hopped and brighten up your days.

_("I'd do anything to see you smile,"__Tonks __told you once. So you smiled with tears on your lashes and splotches on your cheeks because you knew she'd never let you believe otherwise.)_

Maybe one day you'll soar through the swirling clouds, feel the sun on your back, hear her song in your ears, and just feel _happy _as the wind takes you home.

Maybe in another life, you could forget.

_("Anything?" you'd asked, your voice low._

_"Anything," she swore, and in her eyes was that shining defiance you loved so much, that promise and conviction that drew you to her in the first place.)_

You can never forget, though, because who is Cedric underneath his skin?

Cedric is a corpse. A skeleton. Dead.

You were just a girl then, just fifteen years old. When you close your eyes now, all you see is soft, _pale_ skin and open, staring, _empty_ grey eyes and the hard curve of his jaw, the slack set of his lips. Your mind is _twisted_ and _sick_and it has slowly but surely destroyed every memory you have of him.

You dream of Saturdays in Hogsmeade and instead of his ruddy cheeks, bitten red by the cold, you imagine decaying, rotting flesh in unnatural colours, crumbling bone and maggots in his empty eyes sockets and he goes to _touch_ you and his fingers are just cracked bone and blackened flesh and you're screaming and he tries to _kiss_ you and-

and-

and-

and Tonks is there. Tonks holds you close so you can hear the beating of her heart, _boom boom boom,_and know that she's alive.

_("I miss him, Tonks. I- I keep seeing his face, but not _his _face. I keep seeing a zombie Cedric, all rotten and evil and I- I just want to remember him as he was, you know?" you'd cried._

_Beautiful Tonks, perfect Tonks with her pretty, bright hair and her understanding eyes, she did know._

_And all of a sudden, she was growing taller, growing thinner, her eyes fading to a stormy-sky grey and her jaw lengthening and then she was gone._

_Then Cedric sat before you._

_Old Cedric. Real Cedric. Tonks Cedric.)_

You breathe in her scent and you whisper your apologies into the clammy skin of her shoulder. Your fingernails dig into her arms and you surely leave bruises but she doesn't complain. She's Tonks. She's strong. She understands.

_(You cried again that day. You kissed him. You told him you were sorry. He never spoke but he didn't have to, because you needed him to listen, to hear you, to touch you.)_

"Remember when we met?" she sometimes says, trying to plaster over the nightmares with happier times.

"Hogsmeade," you say, smiling through thinning tears.

"That's right. I was patrolling, remember? You didn't want to get back on that train. Couldn't do it, you said. Only a year and everyone'd forgotten about him. And what did we do then, eh?"

"We sat and talked about him," you mumble, your words falling onto the line of her collarbone.

"We did what no one else did, Cho. We remembered him. You were angry and _upset_ and you raged about him, didn't you? _How fucking dare he...! _But I talked you through it. And then what?"

"We got the next train home."

"Indeed we did. And, pray tell, what happened during this journey?"

"I l-laughed. For the first time since- for the first time in a year."

"That you did, my dear. Your smile was – is – beautiful, you know. And when you kissed me on the way out the carriage door, what happened then?"

"Your hair…it went pink again," you giggle, remembering the sudden flush of colour in her hair and in her cheeks.

"You fixed me, too, Cho. You did, and I love you, you silly girl," she says, leaving soft kisses across your scalp.

_(That night, you fell asleep with your head on Cedric's chest for the very last time. You had a dream you were to be married._

_Cedric stood at the altar and you took clumsy steps towards him, weighed down by heavy fabric, the constricting folds of your dress. With each step, there was a shift, a change you couldn't quite notice, until Cedric started melting, changing. Bright eyed and bubblegum haired. Tonks. Your footsteps were suddenly more sure, more confident, your dress was light and you were running, running so fast and when you got there you grabbed her hands and spread your wings and you _flew_.)_

"I love you, too," you whisper into her neck. "Thank you."

You lean up and slowly place your hand on her neck and your lips on hers. The kiss is gentle, full of hope and unsaid promises.

Maybe it's not quite as good as flying, but it's close.


End file.
